Dysfunctional Familiarity

Many years ago, I traveled to Honduras. I was the guest of some Americans who invited me there to teach several seminars. I love to travel and one the best parts of travel - in my opinion - is trying local foods and experiencing local customs. Well, imagine my disappointment when our first meal in Honduras was at an American restaurant chain. It was the same menu as the chain's restaurant in the United States, except it was written in Spanish. Before the week was over, I ate several meals at American franchise restaurant chains. They were all very familiar to me and there was absolutely no challenge to try new foods, experience new customs, or even the struggle to communicate with the wait staff.

I finally asked if we could please go to a local, mom-and-pop owned restaurant or cantina, which we did. As soon as we walked in, I was in a completely unfamiliar setting. I did not know what anything was on the menu, I struggled to communicate, and the setting was extremely different from what I was used to. I felt as if I didn't belong because I was in a very different setting that I was unaccustomed to. But I found that as I made an effort to understand and be understood, that both the workers and the customers were happy to help me find my way around. I stretched to try out my very rusty Spanish, but somehow managed to convey what I wanted to eat. I've never had such wonderful beans, rice, and tortillas in my life, but it required an effort on my part. I was a fish out of water in this small, grungy cantina - a place that was completely unfamiliar to me.

This sense of unfamiliarity is one reason that abuse survivors hesitate to try new approaches to life and relationships. For most of us, we are most familiar with dysfunction. The way we eat, relate, work, parent, partner, and live has been dysfunctional for a long time. So long, in fact, that we may not know any other way. As unhealthy as it is, your "normal" may be extremely self-defeating and ineffective. At the same time – that’s what you know. You know the menu, the language, the setting, and the customs. That's what feels natural and effortless.

When you start that transition to healthy choices, appropriate boundaries, and adequate self-care, you're suddenly in uncharted territory. You're not familiar with the language, customs, or settings. Abuse survivors often struggle when they feel powerless and believe me - when you're trying out "healthy" for the first time - your unfamiliarity with it can cause you to feel very out-of-control, even powerless.

You may actually panic and revert back to what you know best, rather than ride out that unfamiliarity until you become more comfortable. It takes a while to grow accustomed to functional living. It also takes time for the people in your life to adjust to your new way of living, behaving, and thinking. Of course, if you're getting healthier, it may actually feel threatening to the dysfunctional people in your life who might not want you to grow. That's when the panic can really set in if you're not careful.

Trying anything new brings with it a certain level of anxiety and uncertainty. That's normal. If you recognize that this sense of unfamiliarity is a normal part of the healthy growth process, then you've already conquered it. It is what it is. When you know that, you can also develop strategies to stabilize yourself if you panic or feel like a foreigner.

You know, the best meal I had in Honduras on that trip was as that grungy cantina. It was worth the effort and the uncomfortable feeling of not understanding anything. As I pushed through those obstacles, I found there were people willing to help me, unknown tastes and experiences that turned out to be wonderful, and a deep sense of personal pride that I went beyond the familiar - in my case the American restaurant chain - to really have an encounter with the very culture I wanted to be a part of. You'll have those same moments in your journey from familiar dysfunction to healthy choices. While it may not be your "normal" at first, that too will change over time - and you'll feel a deep sense of personal accomplishment and pride when it happens.

Complexities of Damage

People often wonder why their experiences with childhood abuse impact them so deeply. Why does the damage live on and on in so many of us? Why isn't it like a scraped knee that heals up so that you can just move on? Why do you struggle with anger or depression or fear or chaos or addiction or dysfunction decades after the abuse ends?

That's a complex question and the response is equally complex. The complexity rests in the fact that nothing in your life occurs in a vacuum. The perpetrator. The people who wouldn't or couldn't protect you. The time and place. The circumstances that facilitated the abuse. Your own physical, mental, spiritual, and social needs and conditions at the time. These - as well as many others - are all part of the context in which your abuse occurred.

Abuse - the full context of abuse - changes the way you think about yourself and the world. The way you think about trust and security is altered. The way you approach relationships is overshadowed by pain or terror or fear of abandonment. The value you see in yourself and others is skewed. That context of abuse is imprinted in your mind and heart and becomes the navigator. If you're not careful, you will live on auto-pilot with this navigator steering you to sabotage relationships, devalue yourself, withdraw, attack, or disappear.

The context of abuse teaches you that safety and goodness are not necessarily guaranteed. That lesson is often learned very well and the complexity of that lesson is that it's based on reality. You weren't safe. Bad things did happen. But the other part of that reality is that there are, in fact, good and decent people who are not out to abandon or harm or exploit you.

The complexities of abuse's damage can determine how you cope with stressful situations now. You may work very hard to be self-sufficient - avoiding the need to need anyone. You may cling or obsess or be hyper-vigilant. You may pretend that your past doesn't include the disturbing experience of abuse. You may drive yourself and everyone around you crazy with your anxiety, your fear, and your rage. It's complicated.

The path to becoming healthier requires a recognition that your dysfunctional beliefs about yourself and the world - maybe even God - are not determined solely by the actual abuse. It is larger than that. It is the context. Life - your life - is still lived out in a context. The challenge is to separate the context that you function in today from the context in which your abuse occurred. They are not the same. Even if the same people are in your life - even if you're in the same town and the same house and the same room - it's different. If nothing else, the difference is that you're seeking personal empowerment and a healthier path. That alone, is a huge step to re-arranging the context of your life today.



September 11, 2001
The anniversary is upon us. To commemorate this brutal atrocity, let's work for peace, and strive to be people of grace and mercy. There is no better way to honor those who lost their lives than to be the reflect the love of Christ in this dark, sad world.

We will never forget. Never.

Vertigo

I've struggled with vertigo a good portion of my adult life. Yep, you might say I'm a dizzy blond (bad pun, I know). Vertigo is a very disorienting condition. The room spins, regardless of whether you're standing, sitting, or lying down. You lose your balance. You get nauseated. In some cases vertigo can completely incapacitate you! Once, I had a episode so debilitating I couldn't even give a telephone interview for a radio program!

For abuse survivors - abuse of any kind creates that same sense of vertigo. In this case, however, it's spiritual and emotional vertigo - sometimes physical, sexual, and relational too. Abuse is very disorienting when it's happening, but the damage doesn't end there. It completely spins your world around and can continue to create internal and external chaos and confusion for years.

Vertigo is usually caused by tiny calcified bits in the inner ear. Medications are not particularly effective in controlling the symptoms. My doctor told me the best thing I can do to control vertigo is to take care of the source in my inner ear. She explained that it's like dissolving sugar in tea. You have to stir the tea to dissolve it. So my "treatment" as well as prevention from further episodes is to lay on the edge of my bed with my head hanging off, and roll from side to side for a few minutes. And you know what . . . it worked! Dealing with the problem, versus treating the symptoms, helped substantially in controlling and even reducing the vertigo episodes.

There's an obvious correlation here when dealing with your abuse “vertigo.” Covering it up, numbing it, or pretending it doesn't exist - none of these are really effective strategies to be able to function for any sustained period of time. While it would be nice to just take a pill, drink a drink, or click your heels three times and "poof!" everything's fine - that's not the way it works.

Abuse recovery is a pro-active way of living. That's not a statement of despair; it's a statement of empowerment. Some people think that the task of making on-going healthy choices means they're doomed to struggle for the rest of their lives - that they'll never be "healed." I think it's just the opposite. I think the moment you make a healthy choice - a proactive choice, you're already there. Every step you walk on this path of being a healthier, balanced person is miraculous and powerful and amazing!

To lie down and be dizzy is one thing. To lie down, even though you ARE dizzy, and roll around until you dissolve that bit of debris - that is proactive! That effort - metaphorically and spiritually - means you have empowered yourself to get up, find your bearings, and catch a more accurate view of life. Each tiny step you take, each proactive choice you make - big or small - brings you into a place of more accurate perspective. It gives you a glimpse of what it is you're working so hard for.

The Love Hate Experience With God

This is an article about honesty . . . and honestly, I have a love/hate relationship with God. I've been on the up and down roller coaster of belief and doubt, righteousness and debauchery, faithfulness and apostasy. I know that's disturbing to a lot of people, but God gets that completely . . . gets me completely. Gets you completely too.

Let me be the first to admit that I don't have many answers, especially when it comes to God. Honestly, the ministry of Committed to Freedom began because of my own spiritual search for answers to questions that really have no good answers. The dilemma for anyone who has experienced trauma or suffering is to have co-existing contradictions. God is love. Suffering is real. God has the capacity to create. Trauma has the capacity to destroy. The idea of God being powerful and one who intervenes in the circumstances of our lives held up in contrast to unanswered prayer, vulnerable people being abused and exploited, or diseases that progress, ravage, and destroy. Like I said: love/hate.

It may feel completely terrifying to even acknowledge this love/hate relationship with God. It may feel as if you're in mortal danger of losing your soul, of losing your place in God's kingdom, or of falling into deception. But, like every other aspect of life, to pretend these concerns are not important to you, that these questions do not gnaw away at the edges of your soul - is to lie. The fact is, if these contradictions are rattling around in your heart and mind - they're there! God already knows that - it's not like you're going to take God by surprise when you finally explode into a spiritual meltdown because you haven't been honest about your struggles.

I recognize that people from a variety of doctrines and belief systems read this. It is with a great deal of caution and sense of responsibility that I write about such topics as abuse, and certainly about God's role in abuse recovery. I'm sure that up until the day i die, I will still have many more questions than answers, but I want to share a few of my thoughts about the spiritual journey - the quest that you and I are on to help you grapple with these difficult issues. Here is what I know:

1. God is patient, God is love, and God is aware. Keep in mind what Jesus, himself, screamed on the cross when faced with overwhelming betrayal and suffering. In essence he said, "Hey! Where are you? I'm suffering and I can't find you!" Your issues don't take God by surprise. They may take you and everyone else by surprise. They might make everyone around you very uncomfortable, even alarmed - but take a breath. God knows the difference between a seeker and a cynic.

2. God encourages your honesty. You may have to hold back with your pastor, your family, your friends, and maybe even with yourself - but not with God. God's not up in heaven, peering over a cloud with a giant mallet playing "Whack-a-mole" every time you raise troubling issues or questions. Jesus invited people to "Come to him" for any reason, any time (Matthew 11:27-30). Again, your gut-wrenching spiritual howls won't rattle God one bit. They may freak everybody else out (including you!), but God knows the struggle. God knows the path. God knows the truth. God knows the reasons.

3. God is neither a puppet master nor a magician. You aren't under God's control, nor is anyone else. God doesn't pull your strings. Instead, he beckons you to dwell in peace, connect in quiet awe, and wait for illumination. By the way - this is a two way thing. God wants to dwell in peace with you, too. God wants to connect in quiet awe of you, too. God wants to wait with you. The other part of this is that God does not function at the behest of "abra-ka-dabra" prayer. I don't completely understand this. It is a cosmic mystery that unfolds as life goes on, but God's function is not as our personal magician or Santa Claus. This may be the major sticking point that you may have with God. Your expectations are often missing the point of God's role and function in your life. I still haven't formulate all of my ideas on this one - it's still a matter of great meditation and study for me, but the longer I live, the more I realize that my ideas about God are limited, flawed, strained, and obstructed.

So, yes - I love God and yes – I’m very, very upset with God. Yes, I have faith and yes, I doubt. Yes, I follow a moral and ethical code that complies with those of the Bible and yes, I teeter on the brink of unrighteousness. I am a glorious contradiction - just like you!

What makes you so glorious - you must understand - is the fact that you ARE on this roller coaster, you ARE in a tug-of-war with God, and you ARE a seeker and not a cynic. So uncross those arms, take a breath, ask hard questions, and seek, seek, seek. According to Christ, it is only the seekers who find. Only those who make some noise that find their way in. Only those who demand answers that get them. Of course that's my paraphrase with an edge. Jesus put it this way: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Matthew 7:7-8).

I don't know how. I don't know why. I don't know when. I DO know there is an insatiable drive within me TO know. Perhaps there is in you too. So ASK, SEEK, and KNOCK. Then pay attention to what unfolds . . . and be patient, grasshopper!




From Sallie:

Can you imagine the terror of being abused? Of course, many of you can.

Now, can you imagine that same terror if you're mentally retarded or physically disabled?

I'm developing a new seminar for abuse survivors with these particular challenges. I'm also developing one for helping professionals that work with them.

Would you like to help fund this kind of research and development? If so, please click here: http://www.committedtofreedom.org/donate.html

I'm in the midst putting on the finishing touches for these seminars. We really need you to be a financial partner to help make this happen. We also need your continued support to develop many more types of seminars and resources!

Expectations

There's an expression you've probably heard before: "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." This colloquialism must have been developed with abuse survivors in mind! Often times, we can be all-or-nothing kinds of people. That "either/or" thinking is sometimes responsible for doing terrible damage to your relationships, your work, and yourself!

Thinking or acting in "either/or" terms is a form of self-protection. Your life experiences taught you to expect betrayal. Expect broken trust. Expect a catastrophe. That's understandable. These expectations are not based on a fantasy, they're based on facts. You were betrayed. Trust was broken. Catastrophes pepper your personal history.

These facts, however, often become a template that you use to measure everything and everyone. A dilemma is created for you because you know how wretched it is to be exploited or hurt. These are lessons that you learned early in life and have possibly been reinforced as you aged. So you become like Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. You activate the force field around you and do everything possible to become impervious to these painful disappointments.

A hyper-vigilant tendency takes over. You're always on guard. Always on patrol. Always expecting things to fall apart, people to abandon you, or life to kick you down. Don't get me wrong. Life - on a good day - is challenging and overwhelming, but if the way you approach that reality is filtered through "either/or" thinking, you could set yourself up for a very difficult existence.

A friend forgets to call or write - you end the friendship. Your children don't quite live up to their potential - you only see their flaws. Your partner doesn't meet all your wants and needs - tenderness and joy leaves you. In fact, many abuse survivors have histories of many, many chaotic, dysfunctional relationships - leaving one person for another then another then another. Leaving one job for another, then another. Walking away from things or people that are important to you because that feels safer than remaining and navigating through the hard (and often uncomfortable) process of working and living together.

I want to clarify that I am not addressing abusive relationships or jobs or schools - you absolutely MUST put up a force field and reconfigure how you function if there's abuse going on. What I am pointing out, however, is that abuse survivors sometimes have a tendency to look at everything as all-or-nothing, either/or, yes/no, or black/white - when it's just not that way. The bathwater may need to be thrown out, the precious things contained in that water might be worth keeping and drying off.

It's Not Surrender

My abuser was an evangelical minister. God, prayer, heaven, and hell were all an integral part of the sexual exploitation perpetrated against me. That connection between abuse and God placed a very deep wedge between me and God for many years. In fact, I spent a substantial part of my youth wanting absolutely nothing to do with God, church, or Christianity. They were all one in the same - in my mind - with abuse and my abuser. As my mental, emotional, and spiritual state deteriorated, I soon recognized I needed something more - but to acknowledge that "something" was God was the equivalent to surrender in my mind. If I reached out to God, if I embraced Christianity - that meant my abuser and the system that my abuser belonged to . . . won! That's how it felt to me, at least.

Research done in 2006 revealed that those who had a strong history of religiosity (measured by consistent church attendance, involvement in church activities, and life-long affiliation with religious groups and practices) made up the highest percentage in a selected population of incarcerated sex offenders. In other words, strong religious ties often translate into a higher likelihood of sexual offenses and other forms of abuse against children. The other disturbing part of this study revealed that this same group also perpetrated against younger children than the other sex offenders who described themselves as atheists or recent converts.

What this means to many abuse survivors is that their abusers were also deeply involved in religious community and spiritual practices. This effectively obstructs your own spiritual pursuits and creates enormous barriers to finding peace through sacred practices - such as prayer, communion, church attendance, or Bible study. In fact, for many abuse survivors, these practices, icons, and symbols bring terror, anxiety, and repulsion because of their association with abuse.

Your spiritual journey beyond abuse must include growing beyond your abusers' defilement of faith, religious community and practices. Your resistance to God's gentle work in your life may have more to do with fear of alliance with your abuser than an actual struggle with faith. What you must understand is that even if you pray the same prayers, read the same Scriptures, attend the same church, believe the same doctrines as your abuser - that has nothing to do with your abuser.

Your faith is YOURS. No one who abused you is the "winner" if the faith you find hope, strength, and comfort in looks and sounds like theirs. The spiritual quest you are on belongs to you and you alone! Even if you abusers smugly take credit for your faith-walk and have the audacity to continue maligning it with their persistent insistence that you are "returning to their fold" - you are not!

To pursue God, to follow Christ, to pray, meditate, sing, fellowship, worship, study, or genuflect in the same ways your abusers did (or do) is NOT - I repeat, NOT - surrender to them in any way, shape, or form! This is YOURS. You must embrace that idea with total confidence. Your path to walk. Your faith to believe. Your rituals to find comfort in. Your prayers to pray. Your songs to sing. Your faith community to belong to. Not theirs - YOURS.

It is not surrender. It is a declarative alliance with the God of comfort, hope, grace, mercy, and love. It is to latch on to the "I am" from the Hebrew Bible and the "I am" from the teachings of Jesus (Exodus 3:14; John 8:58) and join your voice with that identity. To hear yourself say, "I am" and know that has NOTHING to do with your abusers' perversion and EVERYTHING to do with your pure heart that is on a spiritual quest.

It's not surrender. It's conquest – and you are the conqueror.

Angst Fast

Let me begin this by saying that I have spent most of my life addicted to angst. Glorying in negativity. Reveling in what's wrong. One of my greatest struggles was to come to terms with the fact that I honestly wasn't sure I wanted to become healthier. My true rhythm was found in the familiarity of damage and dysfunction. Self-sabotage and depression. I'm not proud to admit this, but I suspect I'm not the only one.

This worldview is understandable. After all, it's easier to expect the worst and not be disappointed than to expect the best and have your hopes and dreams crushed. Abuse is an effective teacher in that sense. When you've experienced exploitation and mistreatment, you come to believe that all the world's a prison and everyone is suspect - even those you love. Like I said - abuse is an effective teacher.

But what would happen if you shifted that worldview? What would happen if you became a positive person instead of a negative one? Please understand - I'm writing this article mainly for myself! I'm asking MYSELF these questions. But it's intriguing to ponder. What would happen if you made a decision to go on an ANGST FAST? Now I'm not suggesting that you go into some kind of magic denial bubble and lose touch with reality. I AM suggesting, however, that you examine how optimistic or pessimistic you are. That you assess how toxic your words and thoughts are to you and others. That you recognize the energy you spend waiting for the other-shoe-to-drop.

I'd like to suggest an experiment for you and me. I'd like to suggest that we go on an ANGST FAST. That we deprive ourselves from negativity, cynicism, bitterness, and irritation for a set amount of time. Be reasonable with yourself. Don't start out by Angst Fasting for a day - start with an hour - or even fifteen minutes! If you've spent your whole life drowning in angst, dysfunction, and bitter depression - you can't go "cold turkey" (or at least most of us can't go cold turkey!). You need to slowly de-tox and celebrate the little successes - be it five minutes or five hours or five days.

For example, this morning I woke up to a full day's schedule, a shortage of funds and energy, and a pounding sinus headache. I found that my "self-talk" was very negative. "I can't do it all! I don't have enough money or energy! My head is killing me - of course!" The negativity was so loud that it started to spill over in how I treated other people. I was irritable and inpatient. It was the perfect cocktail for a disastrous day. So I experimented with this idea of Angst Fast and decided that for the next five minutes, I was going to look at the same picture in a celebratory way. So here's how that translated:"I have some big dreams and visions that are challenging! I can do some things better than others, but I do not have to do it all. I have a headache and need to pay attention to it - so I'll take some sinus headache medicine and lay down if I can. If I am unable to lie down, then I'll try to slow down." Just this tweaking from negative to positive changed how those five minutes worked for me and those around me. Actually, it empowered me.

So here's the challenge: Go on an ANGST FAST! When you find yourself slipping back into the self-wallowing angst you are so familiar with, then simply regroup, take a breath, and give it another try. Don't beat yourself up - just start again. The old Alcoholics Anonymous saying is very appropriate here: "One day at a time." Break it down however you need to - but make a decision to fast from negativity for a few moments. That will grow to a few hours, then days, weeks, months, and years. Who knows, you may Angst Fast for the rest of your life!


Upcoming Seminar:

October 3, 2009 - Beyond Abuse Seminar. Cornerstone Assembly of God. Oxford, CN (USA)

203-881-3232 www.cornerstonect.org